“How hard can it be to follow five black SUVs?”
Serge leaned over the steering wheel. “Except we’re in Miami.”
“So?”
“Miami drivers are a breed unto their own. Always distracted.” He uncapped a coffee thermos and chugged. “Quick on the gas and the horn. No separation between vehicles, every lane change a new adventure. The worst of both worlds: They race around as if they are really good, but they’re really bad, like if you taught a driver’s-ed class with NASCAR films.” He watched the first few droplets hit the windshield. “Oh, and worst of all, most of them have never seen snow.”
“But it’s not snow,” said Felicia. “It’s rain. And just a tiny shower.”
“That’s right.” Serge hit the wipers and took another slug from the thermos. “Rain is the last thing you want when you’re chasing someone in Miami. They drive shitty enough as it is, but on top of that, snow is a foreign concept, which means they never got the crash course in traction judgment for when pavement slickness turns less than ideal. And because of the land-sea temperature differential, Florida has regular afternoon rain showers. Nothing big, over in a jiff. But minutes later, all major intersections in Miami-Dade are clogged with debris from spectacular smash-ups. In Northern states, snow teaches drivers real fast about the Newtonian physics of large moving objects. I haven’t seen snow either, but I drink coffee, so the calculus of tire-grip ratio is intuitive to my body. It feels like mild electricity. Sometimes it’s pleasant, but mostly I’m ambivalent. Then you’re chasing someone in the rain through Miami, and your pursuit becomes this harrowing slalom through wrecked traffic like a disaster movie where everyone’s fleeing the city from an alien invasion, or a ridiculous change in weather that the scientist played by Dennis Quaid warned about but nobody paid attention.” Serge held the mouth of the thermos to his mouth. “Empty. Fuck it-”
Felicia grabbed the dashboard. “Serge!”
He slammed the brakes with both feet. Then deftly tapped the gas, steering into the skid and narrowly threading the intersection.
The centrifugal force threw Felicia against the passenger door. “Did you see that moron slide into the bus stop? He almost got us killed!”
Serge floored it and stuck his head out the window. “See some snow, motherfucker!”
They continued south as the sun began baking rain off the streets with a familiar smell. Serge skidded through another accident-littered intersection, head out the window again. “Traction, pussy!”
“Serge, pay attention.”
“To what?”
Bam.
Slightly crumpled hood. Radiator steam. Felicia glared at Serge.
“Hey, he stopped short. This is what I’m talking about.”
“Thanks.” She stared out the window. “You lost them.”
“Not yet,” said Serge. “Back at the warehouse they mentioned airplanes, and from where we are, that narrows it considerably.”
Felicia pointed at increased steam blowing over the windshield. “But our car.”
“Just a paint scratch.” Serge threw it in reverse and looked over his shoulder. “Miami residents don’t know how to drive after accidents…”
A rotund man in a custom Tommy Bahama shirt gazed skyward from the runway. A Coast Guard rescue helicopter took off for a rescue. Another idiot trying to cross the sixty miles to Bimini in a single-engine fishing boat.
A damaged Plymouth sat outside a fence with the hood up. Serge refilled the radiator with a gallon jug. Coleman, Scooter, and Ted lay on their backs in the weeds, passing a joint and staring at clouds.
“Far out.”
Felicia stood next to Serge with binoculars, panning the Opa-locka Airport. “There’s Evangelista and the white vans. But I don’t see Lugar’s guys or their vehicles.”
“Don’t look now,” said Serge. He grabbed her for a deep, hard kiss as five black SUVs raced by and sped across the tarmac.
She pushed him away and raised the binoculars again. “A plane’s landing.”
“Lugar’s crew must have gotten tied up in traffic, too,” said Serge. “Told you we’d make it in time to see the shipment depart.”
Felicia watched the Beechcraft taxi to a stop and the stairs flip down. Men from the vans went to the plane. Doors opened on the SUVs.
“That’s weird,” said Felicia.
“What’s going on?”
She handed him the binoculars. “Take a look.”
“That is weird,” said Serge. “They’re un loading the plane. And they’re putting the crates back in the same SUVs.”
Felicia grabbed the binocular’s back. “Those aren’t the same SUVs.”
“Of course they are.”
She shook her head. “The others didn’t have the same window tinting. And I don’t see Lugar anywhere.”
“Tinting?” Serge clicked away with his digital camera. “Nobody’s eyesight is that good from this range.”
“Mine is and… wait, someone’s got a briefcase. He’s handing it to Evangelista.” She adjusted the focus. “I know that guy. It’s Oxnart, from the other CIA station.”
“I remember him from Building Twenty-five,” said Serge. “Lugar’s rival.”
“What the hell’s going on?”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Three a.m.
Washington Avenue. South Beach scene in full swing.
Crowds hopped behind velvet ropes. Limos arrived.
Felicia and Serge strolled up the sidewalk, trailed by the bumbling trio. Scooter wore a hospital bandage on his left paw.
“I’m having trouble getting my head around this,” said Felicia. “Arms coming and going.”
“What’s the plan?”
“I’ll tell you when we get inside…”
The gang reached a corner and zigzagged into a dark alley. Four hard knocks on a steel door. A metal slit opened.
SPY.
Scooter Escobar raced for the back of the club and ordered drinks. Ted and Coleman joined him behind the laser gun. Felicia and Serge grabbed their regular table. The DJ waved down at her from his Blofeld perch and cued up a techo-dance version of the Johnny Rivers espionage classic.
Serge glanced at the Three Musketeers in the rear. “Let’s hope it goes better this time.”
“I think it will,” said Felicia. “They had that fear-of-God look.”
“Never stopped Coleman. He once broke arms on consecutive nights.”
“At least Escobar doesn’t think you’re a foe anymore,” said Felicia. “And they gave him a meaningless promotion for summit security to keep his uncle happy.”
“Is Scooter really necessary?” Serge uncapped a bottle of water. “He’s bad chemistry. Coleman and Ted don’t need any more encouragement.”
In the back of the club: “Check it out!” Scooter revealed an eight ball of cocaine under the table.
“Scooter’s part of the plan,” Felicia told Serge. “He’s our entree with some of the people on the other side that I need in order to fill in the missing pieces. They’ve started meeting him on park benches trying to get intel on us.”
“And they trust him because he’s untrustworthy?” said Serge.
